On-line forum for Germans from Russia Researchers

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Introduction:In 1772 Poland was divided up between Prussia, Russia and Austria basically because they could. Austria created the new Province of Galicia with the 78,000 square miles of land it got and in 1774 the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph II created "Settlement Charters" which encouraged thousands of settlers to emigrate to Galicia. These settlers prospered but for various reasons some of them moved on to Russia. This Topic is intended to discuss all matters associated with these German Galicians and their migration to the Black Sea.

Galizien Germans as we are known are fortunate to have some very valuable resources. First among those resources is the Galizien German Descendants organization (http://www.galiziengermandescendants.org/). All sorts of information about the Germans who settled in Galicia is available on this website including the most valuable resource for Galizien Germans which is the Familybooks. The Genealogischen Forschungsstelle der Galiziendeutschen (GFG) (Genealogical Research Centre of the GalicianGermans) organization in Germany created these family books by transcribing births, deaths and marriages from original church records into family groups and then combining all the family groups in a village into a single village book. Here is the information about getting these familybooks (http://www.galiziengermandescendants.or ... ybooks.htm).

My family was part of this emigration as they left Birkenfeld, Rheinland, Pflaz in 1784 to settle in the town of Bedrykowice in the far south east corner of Galicia before moving on to the Black Sea in 1864.